Zany Zongas and Yosa Buson - "Intercession" and Travel By Train - "Strings" (Old Monster Records)

Today I've been slamming my head against thick waves of drone. Two tapes/two different drone workouts. The first, a collab from Zany Zongas & Yosa Buson, is heavy and menacing. Intercession is a start to finish solid mix of sludge, beats, samples, and muck. The guitars are playing slabs of sound, not chords or riffs. The opening track (all the titles are symbols by the way) features a surprising opera vocal sample that adds to my terror. All this darkness isn't improving my mood. Basically, this tape is molten thick drone and fucking cool all down the line.

Travel By Train's tape, Strings, is a collection of drones released in 2004 and, according to the label's Bandcamp, it was recorded "in candle light in the Santa Cruz mountains during a week long rain storm." The album is wonderfully conceptual in composition. Each piece is based on one string of a guitar (Low E, A, D, G, B, High E) and the "playing" of that string has been manipulated, stretched, torn asunder, and beaten to create these six new slices of music. As a listener (and guitar player) I love the low to high ascendency of the album as a whole. TBT's right on the money with this concept and executed the performance/production perfectly.


Buy and Listen HERE.